While I don’t disagree with Stone that it’s obviously “not our year”, this is such a bone headed thing to say out loud for a guy who usually speaks and says next to nothing of value. This is a great way to really piss off your aging superstar, and demoralize your young talent who are capable of going on a run like we’ve seen in prior years like when Jalen Green would go on a tear after the all star break. Also the moves he didn’t make at the deadline are conflicting with that statement. If that’s the case then why was there no efforts made to get into this summers draft? When you don’t own your own picks the following summer that season prior should always be treated as “the year” even if your team sucks because you have no reason to tank so you might as well win games. Just weird man. Our GM is obviously going through some things. You can see my posts in the other thread that shows how I feel. I want to keep him but I don’t think he should be the head of the organization. We all have character flaws as humans but his really sticks out in terms of having a senior leadership position in an organization so relationship driven and public as running an NBA organization.
Does OKC say it is just not our year when they play their GLeague guys against the Spurs and had 9 rotation guys injured? Do the Nuggets say, it is not our year, when Jokic, Aaron Gordon are in and out of lineups, and have infinite injuries? Way to go, smirkface GM.
I think Ime is a good coach and I'm glad he's here. We would benefit from hiring another experienced assistant in the offseason though to coordinate the offense though.. Rafael Stone controls the roster and absolutely deserves the blame. We remain a good team but we're a different team than last year. Our future looks much less bright. KD has been better than anticipated and is a huge upgrade over Jalen. The problem is the rest of the roster is worse. Most disheartening is that our young talent has not improved. Somehow, Alpi has regressed. Jabari remains the same mediocre offensive and defensive player he was last year. Amen is playing out of position and although he's done some things well, his offensive efficiency and his defense have both suffered. The bottom line is that KD is overwhelmingly our best player and he is old for the NBA. We need another guy who can dribble and shoot and there were several available for reasonable prices. We need better depth after the FVV and Steven Adams trades. We're down to eight capable NBA rotation players. We are sitting on six 2nd-round picks. We chose to sit out the trade deadline. It's a fail by Rafael Stone. I hope Ime hooks up with his wife.
seeks out and overpays a bunch of highly injury prone players then cries like a bich when they get hurt fire this fuking fairy immediately
Ok now that I watched the whole thing, you guys are seriously overreacting. He's not saying he's ok with being bad. He's saying we have a good record and offensive/defensive rating despite multiple injuries. Did you guys think a team with the second best net rating would panic just because you're having a panic attack?
for one, Tari’s contract will actually be tradable for his full salary, secondly you have FVV’s contract that will also be tradable and expiring. You then have unlocked draft picks since our last pick we traded to OKC will be used.
Also this idiot had reporters say Eason was untouchable but the MF can’t even play back to backs at 25 years old.
He keeps talking about the offensive and defensive ratings, but those were inflated by the early season success they had. What about the offensive and defensive ratings they've had since? It doesn't look like remotely the same team, whether that's because of injuries or adjustments or whatever, anyone with eyes can see that they are absolutely not the same right now. Stone **** the bed badly. He'd better hope that whoever they bring in off of the junk pile is a difference maker, because they are trending in the wrong direction in a major way right now.
What trade was everyone wanting to see? Sengun and Reed for Harden? Sengun for Kuminga and Hield? Jabari for Vucevic?
Do u not have eyeballs??? We’re not on the cusp of a championship no matter how much YOU and STONE try to seell it to the more knowledgeable fanbase.
Tilman Fertitta at that press conference: "....and was not meeting our championship expectations. This was my decision and my decision alone. Now that I'm eating those salaries for a couple years, I need you all to eat more food at my restaurants. So come on down to Landry's....." "....or to Saltgrass, where we'll give you a coupon for a large bag of Dorito's [because you'll leave hungry]...."
Disgusting!!!! That's not acceptable for a burger shack, let alone a muli billion dollar enterprise! "Yeah, we'll take your money, but the Whooper is from yesterday, we'll give you crackers instead of fries and tap water, no soda. The guy who flips the burgers twisted his ankle and the soda machine is out. It's just not our day, maybe next week it will be better" Such disrespect to the customer!
Championship almost certainly not, but I think those guys are definitely the difference between a play-in team (what we're seeing now) and a functioning NBA team with a WCF appearance ceiling. These young guys are all one-way players that don't seem to develop their weaknesses.
There are only two ways to interpret this current Rockets team as it exist right now. 1. They are a contender but not top tier contender. In which case they should try to get better during this deadline to reach that top contender status. If so, then Stone not doing anything means he failed at the job he's tasked to do. 2. They are not a contender and they don't expect to compete at the highest level. In which case what Stone did this deadline is consistent with what such a team should do. But if that's the case, then Stone failed this past offseason because he's the one who purposely made this team old and injury-prone. All the moves this past offseason have been win-now moves. So them not winning now is clearly a loss. No matter how you look at it, either Stone failed this deadline, or he failed this past offseason. It's a huge fail either way.
Adams and FVV have missed a significant amount of games the last 3 seasons. He extended FVV for an unnecessary high amount when his market was about 12m a year. He signed DFS, knowing he would not be ready to play at the start of the season and DFS was signed as insurance for Tari that is another injury prone player. Knowledgeable posters on this site were screaming for more guard depth even before we traded Jalen and then wanted more guard depth this off-season just in case FVV got injured or Reed didn’t work out. This deadline and his comments are the last straw for this GM. He should be fired as should the head coach that is obviously in over his head. If you are throwing away the year, now is the time to double down on Amen and Reed playing PG and the very next game after not signing a PG he moves Amen to the dunker spot and hands the ball to KD at the half court line. Last year he said the re-building phase was over and we are now in the championship contention phase and went out and got KD, now he is backtracking. Ime has completely lost this locker room.
